Crusoe,Dana, Sam and Deepha(top to bottom)

What a lovely week of sunshine we have had, and I have been attempting to do a bit of gardening--I made a couple of deep boxes up with herbs and have one waiting for a decision as to what to plant in there. Gaston and Claire brought me some lovely Thyme plants from Belgium which I have put against the side wall where they can get some reflected heat from the brickwork. I have asters and Bamboo as well, the latter, hopefully, will form a screen of foliage at the bottom of the field. The dogs have had a great time lopping about in the paddocks soaking up the rays too.

Yesterday was WELKS at one of my favourite venues-Malvern. It was very warm with a light breeze so consequently my face feels rather stretched and is red. I showed Frizzle for Sue in AVNSC PB and she had a 2nd and was very well behaved, and had lots of admirers(someone was heard to say "that is one of those wire haired Malinois!).

Briards, Tervueren and Groenendaels were before Malinois so the dogs were really quite tired by the time we got in the ring. Crusoe (B.Tete a Tete) was BD and BOB, Sam (B.Saumur) RBD, Dana (B.Sorciere) BB and Deepha was RBB. This was the first time we had entered the new Breeders class which is held after the main classes. It was exciting to be in the Pastoral Finals class, with about 12 other teams-I think this will give breeders much more incentive to compete in what is a very important competition. We didn't get placed but the dogs did a good presentation, but it was great to see the Hawksflight Tervueren team get 2nd.

In Tervueren B.Deja Vu (Deja) was 4th in OB and was also 4th in the Veteran Stakes class.

Ann Browns' Deepha has been doing quite a bit of winning lately at Open shows with her latest being Best AVNSC and Group 2 at Accrington & DCS. Deepha is Chers' sister and they will be 9 in May but, like good wine, they get even better as they get older.

The bottom pictures are of Chatter and Rodes this morning taken through the window, hence poor quality, but they always stop as soon as I open the back door, so I had to be sneaky!

Grace and Kiah (Bonvivant Noisette) had a fantastic weekend at Wallingford winning the ABC Qualifier G1-7 !!and were 3rd in the G3 Agility.

They are through to the semi-finals at Newton Heath !!

A lovely sunny day so the Malinois pups went up the field to play. I still have three pups,Chic,Yvre and Yazoo.
It was so hot they decided to come back to the house and play PeepBo round the backdoor.

I took the Tervueren pups up to Carols' yesterday and they had great fun playing in the paddock with Brittany. As you can see we still have a little flock of them but today Hilke, Dawn and their friend Delia, came to collect Anja. Hilke is hoping to do Obedience with her and Anja loves carrying toys and is a very friendly outgoing puppy. I am sure she will make lots of new friends and she starts her puppy class on Monday.

Csara, Bonvivant Ombrage who lives with Debbie and Paul at Belsharose, has had her puppies, 3 males and 6 females--these are by Cliche.

Venus, a Brizo daughter in Guernsey, has passed her Silver GCits and is a PAT dog.

What a busy week. With a bank holiday I took Elle up to Newark on the Friday for some socialisation. Lyn came to stay for a few days with her two Groenendaels Quest and Rowan. Sunday was Sheffield GSD with Obedience so I took the Malinois pups to sit and watch the world and his/her dog go by. They had plenty of childrens fingers poked through the crate door to chew on. I did a bit of Stay stewarding and Scent Decoy, I do find watching scentwork fascinating.

Kim and Gary brought their Tervueren puppies to show us, they are by Bruine, and I took a few photos. Really lovely outgoing pups with super bone, big coats and nice type.

This week has been busy with Claire and Gaston, Chirazes' breeders, coming from Belgium for two days. We took Cesar and Chiraze for a walk on the riverbank and they had a lovely time chasing each other. Today they left for Belgium and took Chiraze with them to be mated to their male, Strike de Domaine des Vauroux. He has sired a beautiful litter for them to Chiraze' sister Cleo and I think this combination will be very useful for future breeding here in the UK. We will collect Chiraze as soon as she has been mated. We were very sad to see her go but we know that they will care for her until we fetch her home to have her puppies, she is due in season very shortly and the males are already very interested in her !

6am and David and Candice set off for Shuttleworth so they would be in time to walk the courses and help in the rings.What a lovely sunny day it was and I took the 3 Tervueren pups, Brizo, Rodes,Crusoe and Chatter off for the day to Shuttleworth . I met lots of friends and dogs I hadn't seen for ages and took loads of action shots of them. I missed Dejas Clear Round unfortunately with Barbara but had a cuddle with Sam, and Indi had had his run earlier too. Yukon was there with Karin,and I met a Goldmali Cougar son Erik, Jo with Ronnie,Keisha,Pudsey and Zippy(I missed Kodys' run), Grace with Kiah,David and Candice with Rusty and Tia, Natalie with Reno, and Diane and Martin with Remys' brother Riley. His first competition and he did a really super Clear Round! It is lovely to see these dogs competing now and having such a great time!

The pups were obviously too young to go down by the rings but had a whale of a time on their collars and leads for the first time bouncing around and getting loads of attention by the caravans. There were planes overhead, the noise from the rings and gunfire all day and they didn't bat an eyelid. The big dogs had a wander round and were very well behaved meeting all their friends. Lisa and Chris brought a couple of dogs too. It was a really nice relaxed atmosphere and the competing dogs nearly all had rosettes with David and Rusty being awarded Best Malinois with a lovely trophy too. (they had been at Scunthorpe the day before and won the Grade 7 Agility).

The time sped by and before I knew it, after chatting with my friends, it was 7.30 and I had to make the trip home with a van load of sleeping dogs to get back and feed the rest of the mob.

Brizo and Termite are best of friends . A lovely sunny day so the dogs enjoyed their day out in the paddocks. David and Candice were up at Scunthorpe agility show and stopped over for the night on the way down to Shuttleworth. I am really looking forward to meeting up with puppies and owners Sunday and plan to take the pups for a bit of socialisation--and lead training--should be fun as they haven't been on their leads yet!!!!! Think I might take Brizo too as she is bombproof and is a good nanny to teach the pups.

On Sunday there was a motorhome show at Newark and I spotted just the job for Cougar! it even had his name on it!


Wednesday was nice,warm and sunny and the Tervueren pups had a great time getting into lots of mischief.

Back to cold weather again Thursday and Friday, let's hope summer comes soon.

Monday I went up to Carols' and saw Darcy who is being very good--bit of a culture shock I think compared to Tervueren and Groenendael puppies. Darcy had just done her impression of an Andrex puppy only not so tidy and was in the doghouse. She has a great friend in Jack the Ragdoll cat and they had great fun chasing each other round the garden, a wonderful opportunity to get more photos.